I thank the member for Griffith for her question and for joining the Minister for Social Services and me recently to announce the Albanese government's $3.5 million investment in the Preventing Tech-based Abuse of Women Grants Program. Social media promised to create a village square that would create community and inspire creativity and encourage the discussion of new ideas. Instead, it has become a cesspit.

When dehumanising language online becomes normal, it lowers the barrier to harm in the real world. Over the past year, the Australian Federal Police have recorded growing volumes of online abuse, threatening rhetoric and intimidation. ASIO's chief, Mike Burgess—a person of great repute in this place—has warned that social media is 'promoting discord and inflammatory rhetoric, exacerbating polarisation and creating a permissive environment for violence.' The eSafety Commissioner—a person appointed, and reappointed, by the coalition—cautioned that online content can surface real-world intent, shaping attitudes, behaviours and actions, including radicalisation, violence and hate. The AFP Commissioner—someone who we all respect in this place—shared that the national security investigations team is charging almost one individual a week for targeting Commonwealth parliamentarians and public officials. The question before us all this week is: how are we, as elected members of parliament, going to respond to these clarion calls from our most trusted security and safety experts?

Just as individuals are accountable to the police for their behaviour online, platforms must be accountable for enabling it. The digital duty of care is built on the principle that if you build it, you are responsible for it. It applies the same standard to big tech that we expect of every other industry in Australia. The digital duty of care will require platforms to have systems in place to proactively protect all Australians from threats of violence, death and rape, and menacing or harassing behaviour, because it's not good enough to wait until threats escalate or a person gets hurt.

This is not about censoring political debate. This is not about avoiding the criticism of policy. This is not about misinformation or disinformation. If social media platforms, forums, online games and AI chatbots know that the tools they make money from can be used to seriously harm Australians, they should put systems in place to stop it. We don't always agree in this place, but surely we can agree on this.